A celebration of color
Today we pay homage to fashion designers and photographers, those who compose rousing images of light and color that fill the pages of glossy magazines. luscious is our attempt to distill their visions into abstract compositions.
To create the images in luscious, we began with a series of magazine advertisements for luxury brands. We then used a custom algorithm designed to extract “peak” colors from any picture (much like our Wired anniversary piece). A random arrangement of concentric circles fills the plane, representing the essential colors of each region. The resulting image hides context and representation and lets the viewer concentrate on pure color.
The two images below illustrate the process: at left the original, at right the transformed version.
In the luscious gallery, we see Valentino dabbing a splash of his classic rosso, Armani presenting stark blues and blacks, and Bottega Veneta rejoicing in the warm tones of skin and leather. By abstracting away content, we can focus on the color play that sets the tone of these advertisements: the excited reds, the sober grays, and the occasional dash of yellow to brighten up the darkest blues.
Unlike some of our previous work, we don’t view this piece as “data visualization.” It aims to reveal not data, but color and mood.
5 comments
Intriguing and beautiful work – thanks for posting. It puts me in mind of Josh Davis work extracting harmonious colours for his designs from digital photos of flower beds etc. BTW, one reference about colour designers sometimes overlook is Derek Jarman’s book “Chroma”. Each chapter is his reflections (historic, scientific, artistic, and personal) on a particular colour. Worth a read.
Could you discuss a little more what you mean by “peak” colour and how you extract it? It sounds like an interesting concept.
How did you decide on the use of concentric circles? Why not squares or triangles? What is the impact of shape in Luscious’ expression of mood?
@Matthew: We thought circles might be softer, with less directionality… they might let viewers concentrate on the colors better. We’re also just partial to circles!
@Hadley: Our phrasing was definitely a shortcut! Essentially we look for “modes” in color space, and plot those. That’s not quite correct, but it’s the best we can do in a short comment. We hope to say more about this on the blog in the future.
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